Recently, ABC news released a list of the top 10 medical advances of the decade. Here is a summary of those ten advances.

1. Decoding of the Human Genome
While the decoding of the human genome is a large achievement in and of itself, the way in which this discovery is being used for medical science and bedside treatments is equally impressive. Gene therapies are being developed that will make a difference in nearly every medical field in the future.

2. Adoption of Information Technology
Doctors and other medical professionals are using computers, Blackberries, and other connected devices to look up vital treatment information and in other applications. This improvement in efficiency helps doctors to streamline their practices, have access to patient information on the go, and at a macro level allows the standardization of medical records through EHR’s.

3. Smoking Significantly Reduced
Smoking bans in restaurants, bars, and workplaces have been contributing factors in quitting for many smokers. The elimination of smoking in the workplace helped to improve the economy, according to many medical and economic experts. From a medical perspective, diseases related to smoking such as heart attack, stroke and lung disease will be less of a concern in a population that smokes less.

4. Heart Disease Deaths Reduced by 25%
The introduction of new and effective drug treatments for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and other conditions which affect heart health significantly reduced deaths from heart disease over the past decade.

5. Stem Cell Research
This controversial research may prove one day to be as valuable to medicine as genetic therapies. Given its controversial nature, it was severely limited in North America, but it was shown to arrest the progression of ALD, a deadly disease of the brain, by European researchers.

6. Targeted Cancer Therapy Medicines

Trastuzumab (Herceptin) and lapatinib (TyKerb) are medicines which target specific cancers of the breast that work effectively. It is thought that in time similar therapies can be developed for all specific types of cancers.

7. Combination Drug Therapy extends Survival Rates for HIV Sufferers
Between 2006 and 2008, the HIV death rate in the United States dropped by 10%. This was in direct correlation to new combination drug therapies being used in the field.

8. Surgical Techniques that Reduce Invasion Reduce Surgery Risk
New microsurgery methods for various kinds of surgery have reduced the risk for common surgeries significantly. Patients were back up and running within a few days from surgeries that used to have a recovery time of a month or longer.

9. Heart, Cancer Risk Discovered With Hormone Replacement Therapy
HRT was automatically debunked as a treatment method by various studies which proved that the treatment led to an increase in heart disease and cancer risk.

10. fMRI advances Study of Brain
A more focused version of MRI, fMRI allows researchers to map areas of the brain that they had no access to in the past.